Fat Joe knows a thing or two about letting beef get in the way of making money. The “Lean Back” rapper, who has been making the interview rounds to promote the release of his new memoir, The Book Of Jose, explained last week to GQ how a beef with 50 Cent cost him “about $20 million” from a deal with Jordan brand and other appearance fees. In that same GQ interview, he spoke about having an unreleased guest verse that Hay-Z recorded for one of his tracks in 2019, and how it’ll likely never see the light of day because it could have compromised a deal Jay-Z made with the NFL.
You see, around the same time in 2019, Jay-Z inked a deal with the NFL which gave him a heavy hand in booking the Super Bowl Halftime Show and in the league’s social justice initiatives. Fat Joe seemed to indicate that Hov was rapping about the lead-up to the deal, or the deal itself and that once the deal was signed, the verse became a no-go.
“He was talking about the NFL stuff,” Fat Joe told GQ. “He had just signed that big deal with that NFL, so he wanted to let it go. He gave it to me… But I guess his people were like, ‘Yo bro, you just did a deal with them. How are you going to go in like that?’”
He then heaped praise on Jay-Z’shalftime show efforts. “They’ve been doing the biggest Super Bowl. That was legendary with Dre last year. And I know Rihanna’s going to be legendary this year. So, we don’t like to stop no money or burn no bridges.”
As to the whereabouts of the tape of Jay-Z’s verse where he apparently goes in on the NFL, Joe said he had it, but then walked that back. “I got a copy here. I don’t listen to it but I got it — Dre got it. Let me put it clear. Dre of Cool & Dre got it. I don’t have it.”